Trusting Viktor (A Cleo Cooper Mystery) (12 page)

No problem. She’d given me her number on my list of contacts.

Staring into the depths of one of the channels cutting through the salt marsh on the far side of the channel behind my house, I was mesmerized by a massive school of menhaden as they moved in lazy patterns below me. Watching them from her position on the front of my Hobie paddleboard, Tulip started to get excited. “Hey, dummy,” I said, getting her attention. “No shifting positions. Remember last time? We both went overboard.”

Tulip made a noise that sounded a lot like Scooby-Doo and craned her neck to keep the fish in sight without moving her feet. I dutifully followed the school for a while until she lost interest. We were enjoying the last of the afternoon together, but I needed to get back. Wanda and I were meeting for a glass of wine around nine.

Since Tulip takes off when the fun’s over, Henri, being the good child she is, came to help me drag the big Hobie into the yard. Leaning the paddle against the back porch railing, she said in a matter-of-fact manner, “By the way, your friend, Viktor—the one you
used
to know—came by to see you today.”

I tried to keep my expression neutral to mask my surprise. Apparently I didn’t succeed because Henri pursed her lips and said, “He’s a little young for you, don’t you think?”

That did it! My face screwed up in a tight scowl and those little blood vessels that cause you to turn beet red went into overdrive. At least I didn’t sputter when I slowly said, “No, I don’t think he’s too young. He’s not too old either. His age is irrelevant since I barely know him.” Well, the last part was sort of true. I’d only spent one day with him … and one night. But we were passed out part of that time.

Then I remembered I’d had already had this conversation with myself. I didn’t owe anyone an explanation. I lifted my chin, turned on my heel, and beat a dignified retreat to my room.

TWELVE

Wanda and I arrived
at the same time at the Channel Marker Restaurant and Bar just over the bridge to Atlantic Beach. Amazingly, we found seats outside on the deck overlooking the entrance to the Sea Water Marina. At this time on a summer evening, the younger crowd is just starting to make its way to favorite haunts on the beach, and this was one of them. The last light of the glorious summer day was fading from the horizon as a big round moon, only a few days from being full, began its nightly trek. Our waiter, an eager-to-please college student, poured us a very nice Pinot.

As we sipped our wine, an elegant 80-foot sport fisherman rumbled past only a few feet from us. Its dual diesel exhaust pipes, each as wide as a man’s body, sputtered out cooling seawater, leaving a thin veil of fumes in its wake. Wanda and I breathed in, looked at each other, and smiled. “Smells like payday to me,” she said softly and chuckled.

“My sentiments, exactly,” I said. Then, raising my wineglass, I added, “To the oil patch.”

“To the oil patch,” she responded with a click of hers, and just like that, we were bonded.

Besides the years we’d both spent working in the oil industry—affectionately known as the oil patch by those who work in it—it turned out the two of us had similarities in our private lives too. She was also divorced with two grown children. Best of all, she was a wealth of information. She’d been with Global for twenty-five years, survived two major employee purges and a near bankruptcy when the government stopped their first attempt to drill an exploratory well in the Manteo Prospect.

“With so many layoffs and all that debt, don’t you worry you’ll be next?” I asked.

A mysterious little smile crossed Wanda’s lips. “Not at all. They can’t do without me, girl. I know where all the bodies are buried.”

I laughed, but I had a feeling she said it only partly in jest. Instinct told me my new friend was one worth having.

After we swapped stories for a while, I felt comfortable enough to ask if she’d heard anything about the unfortunate Voyager pilot who had fallen overboard. She said no and I believed her, so I moved on to my next topic of inquiry: Did she know anything about Davy Duchamp?

“Good lord, yes,” she said. “He and I grew up in Golden Meadow, Louisiana … you know that’s just a stone’s throw from Port Fourchon, right?”

I nodded that I knew where it was.

“We went to school together until he went away to college to study physics. He had to if he was going to understand the business his granddaddy started, SeaTrek, the geophysical surveying company.”

Wanda smiled reminiscently. “We were real close for most of our high school days, even sweethearts for a while. And I still have to laugh when I think of how his daddy almost had a conniption fit when Davy announced he wanted to change his major to history. To this day, he’s still a huge history buff, especially World War II—Hitler, Stalin, all that depressing stuff. Anyway, he used to mope to me about it, and I told him the truth: he should get his head on straight and finish that degree in geophysics. He did, and the rest is history. His daddy ought to have thanked me.”

“I notice there are quite a few folks on the
Magellan
who sound like they hail from southern Louisiana,” I said. “Duncan Powell, for instance.”

“You’re right there, doll. Duncan grew up not far from Davy and me in a little town called Larose. Our football teams played each other. After college at the Merchant Marines Academy, he moved to Morgan City and went to work with TransWorld. He’s been there, gosh, I guess over twenty-five years. He knows Davy. Heck, everybody in the oil business in southern Louisiana knows everybody else and they’re a tight-knit family.”

“I bet,” I said. I was just about to ask her if she knew why Davy Duchamp would be visiting in Morehead since all the seismic surveying necessary for exploration had long since been completed when her cell hummed like an angry bee on the table. She checked the screen before slipping it in her purse discreetly. “Would you look at the time,” she said. “It’s ten thirty, and tomorrow’s a work day. Let’s do this again real soon.”

“Definitely,” I said. We both needed change for the tip, so after paying our bill on the way out, I volunteered to go back and leave it. By the time I made it to the parking lot, Wanda was long gone. I had the feeling she wasn’t going home, but that was none of my business. I’d ask her about Duchamp being in town next time I saw her.

I crossed the lot still thinking about Duchamp. It didn’t seem logical he’d be in town to see his boys, as it would be practically two weeks before they rotated back on duty. At that moment, Viktor Kozlov got out of a car a few spaces away and walked toward me.

“Finally,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist and giving me a nuzzle behind the ear. “I thought you two ladies would never stop talking.”

I pushed him away and said indignantly, “Have you been stalking me?”

“Stalking? Of course not. Stalking means the other person is not interested. That is not the case with you and me.”

“But I’m
not
interested. Don’t you remember I said I’m only interested in a professional relationship with you?”

“Don’t you remember my reply?”

I thought for a second, looking up at a moon so bright it was casting deep shadows in the lot, and said, “I remember you said
something
, but since I don’t speak Russian, I have no earthly idea what it meant.”

“Let me refresh your memory.
Ne boysya, milaya moya
.”

“And that means?”

Viktor leaned in close to me and whispered in my ear, “It means trust me, my sweet, don’t be afraid.” Then he slipped his arm around me again and pulled me to his chest. I knew I shouldn’t have just stood there and let him hold me, but, seriously, he looked good and smelled good and felt good. Then several thoughts surfaced through the fog of lust clouding my mind: he was still twelve years my junior, we still shared the same workplace, and I had no idea what Henri’s plans for tonight were.

She could be out with her friends right now. She might even drive by this very spot and see me. I stepped from his embrace and said, “You have it backwards, my dear. You’ll have to trust me in this matter, because I’m older and wiser than you. Now, go home. Tomorrow’s a work day.”

“Don’t you think I know how to protect your privacy? I do and I want to be with you so badly,” he said, reaching for me again. “I have a special place where we can spend hours alone and no one will ever know.”

I took another step back, images of the previous hours we spent alone sending a jolt through my system like I’d straddled an electric fence. I simply had to get away from Viktor before I did something I would probably—no, definitely—regret.

“Good night, Viktor,” I said and leaned in to give him a buss on the cheek. Big mistake. He was fast with the old head fake and caught me in a lip lock that I didn’t want to wrestle out of. Jeez, he tasted good too.

Only seconds passed before prudence prevailed and I scooted free, hopped in my Jeep, and left.

Ever actually tried the cold-shower cure for a case of hormone overload? Don’t bother, it doesn’t work. I even tried to concentrate on what I’d learned from Wanda: that Davy Duchamp was a history buff who knew Duncan Powell and virtually everyone in the industry. Which, of course, wasn’t surprising, when you thought about it. My brain, however, was so addled from my encounter with Viktor that I couldn’t think straight. What this information had to do with the death of the Alaskan ROV pilot, I couldn’t see clearly, but it did. I was sure of it.

Giving it all up for the moment, I stepped from the shower and was toweling off when I caught my reflection in the corner of my eye. I turned, sat the towel on the counter, and gazed at myself. Sucking in a deep breath, I tipped my chin up and posed, my hands at my waist. Then I turned sideways, taking in my belly and my breasts. Not bad, but how would I, at forty-six, stack up against a thirty-four-year-old woman, one Viktor’s age?

“Yes. You’re still very beautiful,” Bud said from the open doorway between the bathroom and bedroom.

I spun around. “How the hell did you get in here?”

“Here as in the bathroom, or here as in the house?” Bud asked. “Doesn’t matter. In both cases, I used a door.”

“Where’s Henri?”

“Off with Will at some bar on the beach. They have a lot of catching up to do.”

I snatched up my towel and wrapped it around me. “I didn’t realize you two were coming back today. Nobody ever tells me anything.” Bud looked as good as I’d ever seen him. Had he done something to his hair? It was subtle, but I noticed the cut was more youthful, the style more tousled, a little spiky even.

But it was the Nat Nast buff yellow shirt
à
la Charlie Sheen in
Two and a Half Men
that was the real kicker. Bud had never worn luxury sportswear in all the years we’d been together. Maybe it was the shirt, maybe it was just my hormones, but I was giving some thought to letting the towel slip enticingly when Bud said, “We do too. Have a lot of catching up to do, that is. Meet me in the kitchen. I’ll make us some late-night pancakes.”

Pancakes?

After careful deliberation, I put on a pair of ivory satin pajamas and pulled my hair up in a loose bun. When I sauntered into the kitchen, Bud was already pouring the batter. “You look nice and relaxed,” he said.

Just then I noticed Will’s duffel bag, computer case, and a few other personal items still stacked by the door. “What’s Will’s stuff doing down here?”

“That’s one of the things we need to catch up on. He wants to come and stay at Seahaven with me for a while.”

“Oh,” I said. This was disappointing and bewildering. I was looking forward to Will’s coming home so I could get to the root of what was bothering him. If he was with Bud, whom he worshiped and wanted to be just like, he’d be less likely to unburden himself. And expecting Bud to notice a faint emotional change was really leaning on a weak reed. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

Bud set a plate of hotcakes in front of me.

“Thanks,” I said and picked up one, tore off a piece, and popped it in my mouth. Bud sat his plate down and proceeded to drown his in butter and syrup. How he kept his fabulous physique was a mystery to me. He’d never been big on exercise. “Bud,” I said. “Did Will seem a little moody to you while you were in Paris?”

“Are you kidding? No. How could anyone be moody in Paris?”

He had a point there, but he’d also confirmed my original assessment of his ability to sense things—it didn’t exist.

“Catch me up on all things geological out at Manteo One.”

We talked until Will and Henri came in around 1:30 a.m.

“Hi, Mom!” Will said, giving me a hug and a peck on the cheek. The minute I saw him, I could tell he was still stressed. He was hiding it well, but it was there right under the surface of his sunny expression. After telling me a little about Paris and how much he’d enjoyed any time spent learning the family business, he and Bud were out the door, headed for Wrightsville.

Henri and I went to bed. Yes, I was worried about Will, but at least I wasn’t horny anymore. I slept like a corpse until the alarm went off a little over an hour later. I must have hit the snooze because next thing I knew Tulip was licking my face. I jumped up, ran downstairs to let her out, then threw on some clothes, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and jumped in the Jeep.

Something was holding up the early-morning traffic, forcing me to pull into a parking place at Dockside Marina. My plan was to park there only long enough to jog up the street and see what the problem was.

I hadn’t walked 10 feet when a group of young people ran past me holding signs. Protesters again! Didn’t they ever sleep? But now there were a lot more of them. Why was today different from yesterday? I started to shove my way through the throng to the guard at the entrance but luckily remembered a small side gate behind one of the warehouses.

By backtracking a block and cutting through the pool area of a private condo, I was able to reach it. Unfortunately, several demonstrators and the press members had also found this lesser-known access. Making the executive decision to leave my car where it was for the rest of the day and hope it didn’t get towed, I pushed past them and showed the guard my pass. He let me squeeze through the gate. Rude shouts of disapproval followed me. Halfway across the port yard, I saw the reason for the furor.

SunCo had arrived, and in full glory: seven different vessels bearing its logo were tied up, both at the port dock and across the New Port River on Radio Island.

SunCo was the largest oil company on the planet. They were giants not only in exploration and production, but in the downstream industries of refining and marketing as well. In every single corner of the globe, SunCo had rigs probing the depths of Earth for energy.

Since I didn’t see any anchor vessels—ships that transport the enormous suction anchors that hold semi-submersibles in place—I figured they were using one of their fleet of drillships to drill their first exploration well in the Manteo Prospect.

Obviously it was the presence of the SunCo flotilla that had caused the protest organizations to ramp up their outcry against the evils of capitalism, big oil, fossil fuels, and anything else that fueled the modern industrialized nations of the world. Feeling a small twinge of anxiety about Henri alone at the house, I gave her a heads-up text on my iPhone and then headed back across the yard for the
Iron Responder
.

Spotting me from the bridge, Captain Eddie slid open the window in the wheel house door. “Come on, girl. There’s big doings in the gas patch and we’re burning daylight!”